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10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Promising, but short of objective conclusions, 6 Mar 2001
This review is from: Humanity: The Moral History of the Twentieth Century (Pimlico) (Paperback)
This book apparently took ten years to write, and contains much that is thought-provoking. After an initial focus on philosophy (notably Nietzsche) the style of writing relaxes a little and becomes much easier to read. Glover catalogues for us the trends & emphases which influenced warfare and human rights during the 20th Century. His case-studies include: Vietnam, WW1, WW2 Bombing of civilians, Hiroshima, the Nazi Genocide, Rwanda, Stalinist Russia, Cambodia and China. His treatment of these episodes makes compelling, if harrowing reading, and he demonstrates the apparent plasticity of human nature to allow participation in atrocity.The book raises some very difficult questions, not least of which is the level of compliance of ordinary people in what most would regard as appalling abuses of human-rights. In Glover's thorough resume of history, only a few notable exceptions appear to have tried to go against the flow of the prevailing culture and we are left wondering what awful component of our makeup allows 'decent' human beings to participate in these horrors. Unfortunately, Glover is unable to provide any workable solutions. Early in the book, he effectively sidelines the idea of a Moral Law (given us by our Creator) as being something of irrelevance or simply unviable in the present intellectual climate. He is therefore unable to provide us with an objective alternative (except for the vague idea of "Moral Imagination") which might prevent human beings from continuing such abuses. He is unable to provide any objective basis for the moral judgements he makes, apart from his own subjective set of standards. He is unable to view the future with anything more concrete than the theme-song from Monty-Python's "Life of Brian". In fact, his conclusions are similar to the intellectual discontinuity which he rightly observes amongst the British Communist Party at the time of WW2. Read the book! It's a challenging work - but look objectively at his conclusions (or lack of them).
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by Jonathan Glover
by Adam Jones
by P Singer
